Drapes are used to cover and protect tables, personnel, and patients during medical procedures, and to improve setup and clean up efficiency before and after such procedures. For example, surgical tables may be covered with new sterile drapes before a procedure in order to create and maintain a sterile field in the medical procedure room. After the medical procedure, the used drapes may be removed and disposed of, thus expediting clean up of the room, and new drapes may be installed in preparation for the next procedure.
Medical procedure draping systems, however, tend to be patterned after bed sheets, with apertures and other features (e.g., adhesives) to facilitate medical procedures. For example, a sheet or absorbent drape may be laid across a surgical table in preparation for a surgical procedure. The patient is laid on the sheet or drape and then covered by an typically rectangular surgical drape, which may have an aperture through which the surgeon can performed the operation. In some applications, the aperture may be treated with adhesives to fix the drape in position around the incision and/or an antimicrobial agent to reduce microorganisms around the incision.
However, the limited selection of typically rectangular surgical drapes is insufficient in protecting a large assortment of medical equipment, particularly those with unusual shapes or placements, or in working well in certain medical procedures. While some surgical tables have a uniform shape and may be easily draped with a sheet or drape having a rectangular shape, other surgical tables and equipment have unique shapes which are not conducive the rectangular shape. If a rectangular drape is used on such tables, the drape may not provide complete or sufficient coverage for the uniquely shaped table. Furthermore, such rectangular drapes are particularly susceptible to slippage from the table or other medical equipment.
Existing surgical drapes can be difficult to set up on such equipment and can be even more difficult to remove from such equipment, especially when trying to safely constrain any debris resulting from the medical procedure, such as liquids (e.g., blood, saliva, etc.), tissue, bone particles, and/or other materials (e.g., soiled gauze pads). As a further concern, medical equipment may have moving structures that are not easily or safely accommodated by existing drapes, particularly in the presence of the debris.